But of course, we all know this. We just have to look out of the window of our cottage in Rock to see them in great silver shoals. Go a few hundred metres out and dozens of them will bite in seconds. On to a hook baited with nothing more than a bit of tinfoil. We take them home, roll them in oatmeal like St Rick taught us, eat the healthy oily flesh as recommended by medics, and maybe we turn on the television where somewhere, on some channel, I think by law, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is telling us how very sanctimonious we can feel about doing so.